I find that Midwest submissions tend to get easily missed on SummitPost. Truthfully, climbs our region have a hard time stacking up with more vertically favored regions to the east and west. Therefore you won't likely find any of our peaks making Photo of the Week. Nonetheless, Midwesterners have carved themselves a nice little niche here on SP and I thought it would be helpful to create a central point where we can share the hidden gems located across our region...

I've leaving for the Smokies this afternoon, does that count as "Midwest"?

But a more serious issue: parts of the Midwest are a great place to hike, not to climb. Most of the people are a sucker for pictures of crags. I've suggested that the elves feature some of dwhike's great pages -- hey, elves, feature some of dwhike's great pages -- but no success so far.

I'd love to see a significant Midwest hiking community here. Obviously we're a minority and will remain so, but SP has a great infrastructure and community where we can find a niche.

Thanks Arthur, I appreciate the shout-out! I just enjoy having a place to share all the cool places there are to visit in the "boring part of the country ." I know there's other flatlanders out there like me who miss the mountains but have learned to appreciate what there is to see nearer to home!

dwhike wrote:I just enjoy having a place to share all the cool places there are to visit in the "boring part of the country ." I know there's other flatlanders out there like me who miss the mountains but have learned to appreciate what there is to see nearer to home!

While in the Smokies last weekend, I decided on the following analogies to spices:

Scenery in the mountain West is like hot peppers (serranos are best!) -- obvious, showy, and it hits you on the side of your head.

The East (like the Smokies) is like saffron -- an interesting spice, more subtle, and too darned expensive.

Scenery in the Midwest is like oregano -- nice in its own way but not really unusual, and I'm glad it's there, even though you can often substitute basil.

Quite some time ago I added four Missouri pages. Three are mountain pages and one is a range page. They are all in southeast Missouri which is a really nice area where I spent many weekends from 2001 to 2003 while living in the St. Louis area.

The range page includes topozone links to several other small peaks I summited but don't feel I have enough pictures to do a summitpost page justice. Please let me know if anyone has any photos of these. The page also includes several shut-ins I visited. Shut-ins are the local term for creeks pinched in by rock that form rapids, cascades, swim holes, etc. These are great to escape the summer heat and humidity in the region.

I put a lot of work into a page about the Sawtooth Range, located along Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior. There is only one peak that falls within this range featured on Summit Post at this time which leaves at least four or five pages that need to be built.

I have filled out a lot of information on the range page - enough to qualify it as being complete, but I plan to continue adding information in the form of stuff that isn't necessary but is valuable. Please visit, read, vote and comment accordingly because, to quote the first post in this thread, "I find that Midwest submissions tend to get easily missed on SummitPost."